The US Secret Service, working with a coalition of international law enforcement agencies, has fallen and took the Garatex website, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange accused of being associated with Darknet markets and ransomware hackers.
On Thursday, Garantex's official website was replaced by a notice that said the exchange domain was seized by a secret service following a US lawyer's office warrant for the Eastern District of Virginia.
This is the latest action taken by Western governments against the exchange based in Moscow.
Last month, the European Union also punished Garantex as, saying It is “closely related to Russian EU banks.” It is part of a package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, US Treasury punishes Garantex.
The notice of the takedown, seen by the TechCrunch, said the operation was conducted in coordination with the US Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol, the Dutch National Police, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalant or BKA), the Frankfurt General Prosecutor's Office, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, and the Estonian National Criminal's Office.
Techcrunch reached all these organizations to comment. At the time of writing, only the FBI responded, refusing to comment.
The TechCrunch also reached Garantex through the official email addresses listed on the site prior to seizure, as well as through the company's Telegram account. Garantex did not respond to these messages.
The TechCrunch has confirmed the website deprivation notice by reviewing the domain notes facing the internet of Garantex. Like Thursday, Garantex's web domain is now pointing to servers known as secret service. The same server also has been posting many other website notice notices conducted by secret services in recent years.
Following the seizure, Garantex did not mention the law enforcement operation on the official telegram channels. On Thursday morning, Garatex announced This will “suspend all services, including cryptocurrency removal,” according to a translation of the announcement machine.
The decision came after Stablecoin issuer Tether frozen $ 28 million worth of cryptocurrency in Garantex.
“We have bad news,” Garantex wrote. “We're fighting and not giving up! Please remember that all [Tether] In Russian wallets are currently under the threat. “
